Syracuse is among nine Sweet 16 teams with no McDonald's All-Americans

Dennis Nett / The Post-StandardSyracuse forward Wes Johnson, who leads the team with 16.5 points and 8.5 rebounds per game, was unranked coming out of high school. Syracuse and Butler will have something in common when they take the court Thursday night in the Sweet 16 - neither team has a McDonald's All-American on the roster.

“I’m thinking somewhere at some point somebody had to rank him. But his name was nowhere to be found," said SU assistant coach Rob Murphy earlier this season. “This would be the first year we really don’t have a guy that was in the top 100 with a lot of hype. Normally, this type of team isn’t supposed to win and win big." (More on SU's unheralded recruits)

Besides SU and Butler, seven other Sweet 16 teams do not have any McDonald's All-Americans, including West Virginia, Purdue, Michigan State, Xavier, Northern Iowa, St. Mary's and Cornell. Duke has six McDonald's All-Americans on the team, Kentucky has two, and Baylor, Ohio State, Kansas State, Tennessee and Washington each have one.

Since 1979, the only team to win a national championship with no McDonald’s All-Americans on its roster was Maryland in 2002.